Using the @ was causing errors for me

Right. Array elements and hash values can only be scalars. What do you expect $currVar[$arrayKey[$i]] to contain?

But i'm trying to learn HOW to do this at the same time.

I've been writing Perl 5 professionally since 1998. I probably could write robust XML parsers in multiple languages, but I never do because it's really not worth the time getting things right. I'm sure I'd learn a few things doing it even with my experience, but that's not worth it either, because parsing XML is tricky.

You're just learning how to use arrays and hashes in Perl. You've already spent several days getting this far; expect to spend at least that long figuring out robust parsing of the XML you've shown. Your reach exceeds your grasp, which is not a bad thing, but you've chosen a particularly pernicious task to learn.

I don't mean to discourage you from learning. Certainly you have a lot to admire in sticking with this task—but what you'll learn by using a module in this case is very much more valuable right now at your level of Perl understanding than all the work necessary to make a robust XML parser.

Improve your skills with Modern Perl: the free book.

In reply to Re^3: Working through it... by chromatic
in thread Working through it... by Inexistence

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.